WELCOME TO CONVERSE COUNTY, WYOMING:
City
Douglas
Towns
Glenrock
Lost Springs
Rolling Hills
Census-designated place
Esterbrook
Other place
Bill
Lost Springs, Wyoming (population 1) Lost Springs is a town located in Converse County, Wyoming, United States. As of the 2000 census, one person lives there. According to the United States Census Bureau, the town is one of only five places in the United States to have a population of 1 person. The others are Hibberts Gore, Maine, Erving's Location, New Hampshire, Monowi, Nebraska and New Amsterdam, Indiana.
Rolling Hills is a town in Converse County, during the 2000 census, the town had a population of 449.
)
Douglas is located on the banks of the North Platte River, and is named for Stephen A. Douglas, U.S. Senator. Douglas' location affords excellent access to nearby sights. Medicine Bow National Forest is located nearby, as is Thunder Basin National Grassland and Ayres Natural Bridge. In addition, Douglas is the location of the Wyoming State Fair, held every summer and known for its rodeo and animal competitions. Also on the fairgrounds is the Wyoming Pioneer Memorial Museum, a collection of pioneer and Native American relics pertaining to the history of Converse County.
The jackalope legend in the U.S. was attributed by the New York Times in 1932 to Douglas Herrick (1920–2003) of Douglas, and thus the town was named the "Home of the Jackalope" by the state of Wyoming in 1985. Douglas has issued Jackalope Hunting licenses to tourists. The tags are good for hunting during official Jackalope season, which occurs for only one day, June 31st.
According to the Douglas Chamber of Commerce, a 1930s hunting trip for jackrabbits led to the idea of a Jackalope. Herrick and his brother had studied taxidermy by mail order as teenagers. When the brothers returned from a hunting trip, Herrick tossed a 
jackrabbit carcass into the taxidermy shop, which rest beside a pair of deer antlers. The accidental combination of animal forms sparked Douglas Herrick's idea for a jackalope.
The jackalope — also called an antelabbit, aunt benny, Wyoming thistled hare or stagbunny — in folklore is said to be a cross between a jackrabbit and an antelope (hence the name), goat, or deer, and is usually portrayed as a rabbit with antlers. Some believe that the tales of jackalopes were inspired by sightings of rabbits infected with the Shope papillomavirus, which causes the growth of horn- and antler-like tumors in various places on the rabbit's head and body.[1] However, creatures such as the griffin and the chimera perhaps suggest that the concept of an animal hybrid occurs in many cultures. One common southwestern species of jackrabbit is called the antelope jackrabbit, because of its ability to run quickly like an antelope; it would have been easy enough to imagine instead (for comic effect) that this jackrabbit had the horns of an antelope.
Douglas was listed as one of the 100 Best Small Towns in America in 1996 by Norman Crampton in his book The 100 Best Small Towns in America.
The former Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley Railroad passenger depot in Douglas is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Esterbrook is a census-designated place (CDP) in Converse County, Wyoming, United States. The population was 32 at the 2000 census.
Bill is an unincorporated community in Converse County, Wyoming, United States.
The settlement is rumored to have begun after World War I when a doctor moved there. It was called "Bill" by the doctor's wife due to a number of men in the area with that name[1].
In 1997, Bill consisted of a combined gas station and rural post office serving local ranches. It has since been redeveloped with a hotel and diner for Union Pacific Railroad employees who take mandatory rests in the town[1]. The new development more then doubled the population to 11 people in two years.
Dan Barry takes readers behind news articles and into obscure and well-known corners of the United States. The New York Times courtesty of Wikipedia.com.
Deloris Renteria manages the Oak Tree Inn and Penny’s Diner in Bill, Wyo.
A lodging company agrees to build a hotel and diner in the middle of, essentially, nowhere, to cater to the needs of railroaders on the coal line who are required to stop and rest there.
For decades this speck of a place called Bill had one, two or five residents, depending on whether you counted pets. But recent developments have increased the population to at least 11, so that now Bill is more a dot than a speck, and could be justified if one day it started to call itself William.
In mid-December those developments appeared like some Christmas mirage: a 112-room hotel and a 24-hour diner. Here. In Bill. Amid the swallowing nothingness of grasslands, where all that moves are the wind, the antelope, the cars speeding to someplace else — and those ever-slithering trains.
Day and night the trains, each one well more than a mile long, rattling north with dozens of empty cars to the coal mines of the Powder River Basin, then groaning south with thousands of tons of coal. They clink and clank behind the cramped general store and shuttered post office to create the soundtrack of Bill.
But Bill is also a crew-change station for the Union Pacific railroad company, which means that dozens of conductors, engineers and other railroaders on the coal line take their mandatory rest here. Few of them want to be in Bill, but in Bill they must stay. They are its transients, forever lugging their lanterns, gloves and gear.
For many years the railroaders stayed in what they called, without affection, the Bill Hilton, a tired, 58-room dormitory near the rail yard with thin walls and, lately, not enough beds, as the booming coal business has increased the demand for trains. At 2 in the morning or 2 in the afternoon, bone-tired workers just off their shift would wait for a bed to open up, and then hope for sleep to come.
Union Pacific addressed the situation by working with a hotel company called Lodging Enterprises. The company agreed to build a hotel and diner in, essentially, nowhere, and Union Pacific guaranteed most of the rooms for its weary railroaders.
The history of Bill is recorded in age-brittled papers and newspaper articles kept behind the bar at the back of Bill’s general store. It seems that a doctor settled here during World War I, and that his wife came up with the town’s name after observing that several area men were all called Bill.
There came a small post office, and a small store selling sandwiches to truckers, and a small school for children from surrounding ranches, and little else, except for those trains. At one point the owner of the general store established the Bill Yacht Club: no boats, no water, no costly boating accidents. He sold hats and T-shirts to tourists who felt in on the joke.
The hotel in Bill — some call it the Bill Ritz-Carlton — is open to everyone, but is especially designed to accommodate these railroaders. For example, in keeping with a contractual agreement between the railroad company and the unions, it must have a break room, an exercise room and, very importantly, a card table.
Because railroading is hardly a 9-to-5 profession, each room has window shades designed to thwart any peek of daylight and thick walls to snuff out sounds like vacuuming. The hotel also has a “guest finder” system that uses heat sensors to signal if someone is in a room, possibly resting, almost certainly uninterested in a cheery call of “Housekeeping!”
The Ritz of Bill still has its growing pains, its clash between two cultures — hotels and railroads — as evidenced by a slightly misspelled sign on the diner’s door: “Union Pacific Guest: Please remove kleats before entering building. Automatic $50 fine for violation!!!!!! Thank you for your cooperation.”
Providing mild counterpoint is Jarod Lessert, 35, a train engineer and one of Bill’s longtime transients, who has just checked out of the hotel. He is sipping a Diet Coke at the general store’s back bar while waiting for midnight, when he will drive a coal-loaded train the 12 hours back to South Morrill, Neb., where he lives and prefers to sleep.
He says the new hotel is far better than the old dormitory, but adds that some of the hotel’s rules are plainly ridiculous. He also expresses shock at the prices in the diner: “Nine dollars for an omelet?”
Actually, an omelet costs $7.99, plus tax, with meat, hash browns, toast and drink. But at least now you can have an omelet here.
At least Greg Mueller, a manager of train operations, can eat a hot roast beef sandwich ($7.49) while thinking about a hill nearby where he can see the crisscross of trains below and the constellation of stars above. At least Marty Castrogiovanni, another manager, can sip a coffee ($1.46) while marveling that Bill, tiny Bill, is part of what may be the busiest train line in the world, in terms of tonnage.
At least now you can look up from your omelet, overpriced or not, and see through the window another train carting part of Wyoming away.
Day and night, those trains, creating a consuming sound undeterred by special curtains and thick walls. It is a sound of money being made, lights turning on and the disturbed earth rumbling at your feet. It is the sound of a dot called Bill, too busy to sleep.
September 27, 1923 – near Glenrock, Wyoming, soon after the washout of Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad's bridge over Cole Creek, a passenger train fell through the washout, killing 30 of the train's 66 passengers. This marked the worst railroad accident in Wyoming's history.
Adjacent counties
* Campbell County, Wyoming - north
* Weston County, Wyoming - northeast
* Niobrara County, Wyoming - east
* Platte County, Wyoming - southeast
* Albany County, Wyoming - south
* Carbon County, Wyoming - southwest
* Natrona County, Wyoming - west
* Johnson County, Wyoming - northwest
|
Welcome to Converse County Wyoming Genealogy Trails
I am your temporary county host: Jo Ann Boyd Scott. THIS SITE IS UP FOR ADOPTION: e-mail me.
Send me text, pictures or information about Big Horn County and I will post it .Your data is owned by you not the web site. SEND DATA to this e-mail. All work is copyrighted, 2008.
If you would like to help transcribe, e-mail, I can really use the help. Check back, lots more coming. All text and graphics are covered by current copyright and copyright belongs to the original submitters. Because we are a new website, we are looking for county hosts or if you would be interested in volunteering, please visit our Volunteer Information Page and get in touch with Kim. If you are comfortable with computers, along with a desire to transcribe data and enjoy western history, e-mail me and I will help you get started . Subscribe to mailing list.This site is continually growing, check back
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |